For the record, and for a variety of reasons, I have been a supporter of the invasion for some time. I've been debating it endlessly with all kinds of people for nearly a year now It's something that I feel strongly about. Call me a jingo or bloodthirsty or racist or any plethora of names, my position will not change for it. There are people who advocate my position who are all these things. I am not those things, and people like me constitute the majority.

On the other side of the debate are many, many people that hold our country in the highest regard. They will shout about how wrong this war is morally, practically, or both. They will be accused of coddling a dictator, of being oblivious to Hussein's tyranny, and being unpatriotic, but their position will not change because of that. There are people who advocate their position that are those things, and a majority are not.

Dixie Chicks frontwoman Natalie Maines proclaimed on foreign soil that this war (and our president) made her ashamed to be from Texas. In response, people are destroying their CD's and coming up with cute names like Vichy Chicks. Oklahoma Red Dirt band Great Divide's egroup has been hijacked by a political debate In Chicago, there were competing demonstrations, one side screaming "killers" and the other screaming "idiots." people are holding up signs suggesting that they only support our troops if they are killing their superiors. Or maybe that's a photoshop image mocking the extremity of many of the protesters. Tit-for-tat, does it really matter anymore?

It's difficult to agree to disagree when thousands of lives hang in the balance. Though roughly 2/3 of the American population agree with my position, I'd say maybe 1/5 of the people I would call my friends do. I rarely bring up politics with my largely liberal and Naderite friends and they know better than to do the same. As the images come back from Iraq, that becomes increasingly difficult. My old flame Ora brought up current events for the first time in years, proclaiming that Baghdad "has been levelled" and she predicted thousands of casualties. Our strike was amazingly surgical and most of Baghdad stands with a maximum of a couple hundred casualties from the strike. But when it's a war that you're against and you see as being about oil of Bush's 2004 re-election bid, those aren't 300 deaths of "unfortunate collateral damage"... it's tantamount to 300 murders. If it's a war that you're ardently in favor of, the bloated casualty estimations are more than a mistake, they're buying into a deliberate attempt by many of our enemies to undermine an effort that is essential to our long-term national security.

What's becoming increasingly tragic about all this is that all of our arguments and debates are irrelevent. The decision has been made. The soldiers have been deployed. Liberals that post up pictures of smoke above Baghdad and smugly proclaim this to be Bush's legacy are not doing anybody, or any cause, any good. The war is on. It is now definitely in Iraq's best interest that Hussein fall quickly. The more resistence we're met with, the more of Baghdad will be leveled. If this is about oil or Bush's approval numbers, nothing changes that simple fact. Conservative that write odious books about how liberalism is treason and dissent tears at the fabric of our nation and those that self-righteously read and cite such filth need to let it go. We've got our war. Our opinions of one another and the opposing viewpoints... indeed, our opinions on the war itself no longer matter, if they ever really did.

What matters is that we are at war, whether we like it or not. There is nothing wrong with expression our support or sorrow on this point. A patriotic song here or a protest song there keep us involved and keep the discussion of who we are as Americans and what we want to be. They can be productive. Ankle-biting our military's effort, proclaiming us a nation of terrorists or a nation gone soft and afraid to do what "really needs to be done" over there don't. Stressing, for the thirty-second time, why we are for or against the war with someone who damn well knows we disagree does nothing but make each other angrier and increasingly embittered. Good and honest people disagree. People you love dearly disagree. Intelligent people, loving people, and people that only want the best for our country all disagree.

It's natural for pro-war people to want to get others to understand what we're fighting for and what we're up against. It's natural for anti-war people to want people to understand how fundamentally wrong this war is and how we need to get out. At the end of the day, though, it doesn't matter what we think. There was a time for debate and that time, in my view, has passed. In years to come, if things go well, I may have nightmares about supporting this war. Or perhaps, of things go poorly, people against the war will see that America seized a unique opportunity to provide the long-trouble Persian Gulf with its second democracy and they'll wonder what they will so worried about. I don't say this because I have doubts about my view or because I believe people on the other side are in for a giant "I told you so."

The thing is that I don't know, and neither do you. Months from now, if we're still scouring Baghdad and fighting Republican Guard guerillas, we'll have to talk about what to do.

For my part, a couple nights ago I sent off an email to a friend replying to something she'd posted on the war. I corrected someone on a minor technical error they'd made in their anti-war LiveJournal post. I was wrong in both instances. Now isn't the time to "set the record straight" or refute ill-concieved points for or against. Right now, the war is less than a week old, and it's time to hope, or pray, for the best. There will be time later to discuss the merits of contemporary liberalism or conservatism and to set the record straight later, when our POW's are not on television and our soldiers aren't freshly under fire.

I will continue to discuss the war in friendly company and places reserved for political debate. I will not insert it into my relationships or into forums surrounding the arts. We've reached the point where making points to people who've made up their mind in the opposite direction is merely picking a pointless, embittering personal fight. Somehow, we have to find a way to agree to disagree and go from there, even though this is as life and death. Because it is.

Please feel free to comment with your thoughts, though I ask you not to make points for or against the war. I have tried to be even-handed with this post, but if you feel that I haven't, please email me privately and I will try to rectify any unintented digs in this post.